Opportunities for using AI chatbots to enhance customer service

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a level of intelligence possessed by machines, including robots equipped with human-like cognitive functions such as learning and problem-solving. Many may fear a future with super intelligence, but others revel in the possibilities. AI can be used to help people like never before. One such way is by enhancing chatbots.

Forrester predicted that companies would increase AI investment by over 300% and that 57% of those companies would use AI for customer service. Furthermore, IDC claimed that one-fifth of all major retailers would use AI to customize brand experience by 2018. There are countless reasons why more businesses should jump on this opportunity:

AI is always learning.

Talk about workers who learn on the job! Your customers will shape how your AI behaves since the robots will receive continuous input and use this knowledge to improve. Each conversation provides more data for the AI to process. They will soon learn your customer's preferences, expectations, and questions.

AI can be taught by people.

Your customers aren't the only ones who will help develop your AI. There's nobody better than your customer service team to partner with your robots and teach them a thing or two about the business. Customer service agents know what they want each chatbot to do and can ensure that the AI learns the correct stuff.

For example, if a social media company wanted to build a bot to flag abusive messages, it might automatically target those that include violence and profanity, which means that a lot of innocent posts will get labeled in the process. Without human assistance, a bot may perceive messages like "I hope Mayweather kicks McGregor's butt tonight!" as a violent threat. Robots need human help to function.

AI can offload simple questions.

Most AI is not yet advanced enough to handle complicated customer service issues. In fact, Facebook Messenger bots only successfully manage 30% of customer requests. These bots are best suited for structured conversations without nuance.

However, bots can save your customer service team a lot of time by offloading common and straightforward requests such as directing a phone call to a person, answering common questions, processing refunds, recovering passwords, and sending messages. That gives human workers more time and freedom to handle more urgent and complicated customer service issues.

AI is cheaper than human workers.

You don't need to spend time or money training your robots. Nor do you need to provide them healthcare, buy them lunch, or worry about them leaving for a different company. AI is more inexpensive than a human worker and therefore saves the business a lot of money. You can invest those savings in further resources for evolving your customer service team. You could also invest in perks that help make workers happier and therefore more productive.

Many scientific figures like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking fear that superintelligence might bring World War 3 and spell humanity's doom. However, others such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg see an optimistic future where robots and humans work together as one. We can help build this future and ensure happy customers by using bots to our advantage.

ReignDesign is developing Savvy, an AI chatbot to enhance customer service. Want to learn more? Get in touch with our business team.